Chapter 1: Point of Departure and Key Concepts
1.4.4 Limits to Adaptation
1.4.4.1 Limits to Adaptation and Relation to Transformation
This report assesses adaptation limits (soft and hard) and residual risks for some actors and systems (Chapter 16). Residual risk is the risk that remains following adaptation and risk reduction efforts (SROCC). Residual risk is also used as other terms such as ‘residual impacts’, ‘residual loss and damage’ and ‘residual damage’. As noted in AR5 WGII (IPCC, 2014a, b), the residual risk is larger or smaller depending on a society’s choices about the appropriate level of adaptation and its ability to achieve an appropriate level. The intersection of inequality and poverty presents significant adaptation limits, resulting in residual impacts for vulnerable groups, including women, youth, elderly, ethnic and religious minorities, Indigenous People and refugees (Section 8.4.5). An appropriate level of adaptation, which ideally reflects a balance between the desired level of risk and the actions needed to achieve that level of risk, depends on the solution space, the society’s views on climate justice, the tolerance for climate-related risks, the society’s tolerance for the costs and other impacts of the actions needed to reduce risk. IPCC’s special reports stated that residual risks rise with increasing global temperatures from 1.5°C to 2°C (SR 1.5) and emerge from irreversible forms of land degradation (SRCCL). Among other risks, this report evidenced that, at risk to coastal flooding from sea level rise, nature-based adaptation measures (e.g., coral reefs, mangroves, marshes) reach hard limits beginning at 1.5°C of global warming (Chapter 16). Residual risks may lead to exceeding the limits of adaptation, hence, this report underscores on the role of decision making on transformational adaptation for dealing with residual risk as well as soft and hard adaptation limits (Cross-Chapter Box LOSS in Chapter 17). Section 1.5 addresses transformational adaptation in the context of climate resilient development pathways since such adaptation is inseparable from mitigation and sustainable development.
